Cornered!

James McKimmey

Cornered!

There were two men in the car. One
was short, lean and dark. He was a tense man with quick dark eyes beneath black eyebrows. He wore a dark brown topcoat, matching hat, and tight-fitting leather gloves. He sat behind the steering wheel waiting for the service station attendant to come toward the pumps through the swirling snow.

The second man was not much taller, but he was heavier. He tended to roundness: his face was round, his hands were round, his puffy, fishlike eyes were round. He was dressed almost identically with his companion, but the color of his coat and hat was a lighter brown; the color almost matched that of his hair and eyebrows.

The attendant had arrived, and the darker, smaller man lowered the car window.

“Yes, sir?” the attendant smiled. His name was Corly Adams. He took pride in running his station. He wanted to run his station better than anyone else in Graintown. Corly was always happy to oblige, always happy to serve. It was good business, and Corly just liked to be engaged in everybody’s affairs. When Corly went to heaven he only hoped there was plenty to do and a lot of folks up there to do it for.

“Fill it up,” the darker man said.

“You bet your life!”

“Legs are killing me,” the man with the round face said.

“Sure,” the darker man said. “Everything kills you.”

“Going to get out and stretch.”

“Sure. Get out and stretch. You’ll die otherwise.” The round man got out ungracefully, his topcoat bundled around him like a thick blanket. The dark wiry man got out too, smoothly and quickly. There was something about him that made his smallness seem less small. His face wore a set expression, and only his eyes moved. But it was somehow a look of animal endurance, not one of fragility. He held his small gloved hands in front of him and carefully rubbed one over the other.

The round man came around the front of the car. He looked like an outsized child bundled inside his topcoat. His teeth were chattering.

“This cold kills me.”

“You should have died a thousand times today.”

“You’re losing your sense of humor, Billy.”

Billy Quirter looked through the falling snow and noticed Corly Adams adjust the nozzle of the gasoline hose into the car’s tank, then brush a hand over the rear license plate.

The round man’s voice hushed a little. “I wonder what Tony’s thinking about right now?”

“Shut up,” Billy Quirter said.

“See? You don’t want to tense up too much, Billy. I’ve been watching you.”

“Maybe it’s listening to you, Al.”

“Now, Billy.” Al Poli slapped his hands together again, teeth chattering. “This goddam cold, huh? The middle of nowhere and all this cold and snow and crap. I’m going to freeze to death.”

“I don’t know who’s worse off,” Billy Quirter said, “you or Tony. All they’re going to do with Tony is cyanide him. You, it’s your legs killing you, the cold killing you…” His waspish voice trailed away. His eyes had never moved from the actions of Corly Adams.

“We’re going to find her in time, ain’t we?” Al Poli asked.

“Shut up, Al.”

Al Poli shrugged, trying to burrow deeper in his topcoat.

Corly Adams came around the car. “You come from Nevada? I saw your license plates.”

“Right,” Billy Quirter lied.

“What part?”

“Vegas.”

“Las Vegas! That’s some town, I hear! All those movie stars!” Corly lifted the hood. “How do you like this new Chevy? Nice car, huh?”

“Sure,” Billy Quirter said.

Corly Adams pulled the oil stick. “What do you do in Las Vegas, anyhow?”

Al Poli looked at Billy Quirter. Billy Quirter shoved his right hand through the first and second buttons of his topcoat. Al Poli put his right hand into the pocket of his topcoat.

“Business,” Billy Quirter said.

“Fine! Well, your oil’s okay.” Corly looked across the car’s engine as a half-ton truck moved in beside the other pumps. “What do you say, Henry!” he called. He slammed the hood down and turned to Billy Quirter. “Say, you fellows’ll excuse me for a minute, won’t you?”

“You got a map of this country?” Billy asked.

“You bet! A whole pile inside the office there. Just put out by the Chamber of Commerce. Take one and keep it!”

Corly Adams hurried to the newly arrived truck. Billy Quirter said, “Watch him, Al. He’s nosy.” Al Poli nodded. Billy Quirter walked toward the office.

Henry Dawson in the half-ton truck yelled to Corly Adams, “She’s going to blizzard if she keeps it up!” But Al Poli could not catch the words. Snow blew in powdered gusts across the roof of the station office and around the pumps. Al Poli tried very hard to listen carefully. But he heard only voices, not words. The wind blew the words away.

The conversation would have meant nothing either to Al Poli or to Billy Quirter.

The point of Corly Adams’s conversation with Henry Dawson was that Henry Dawson owned a few head of cattle that Sheriff Joe Bingham, who had decided he preferred cattle to a new campaign, was interested in buying. Henry Dawson had no telephone on his small ranch. So the retiring sheriff, with only twenty-seven days of term remaining, had left word with Corly Adams that he would like to speak to Henry Dawson when Henry came to town. While Billy Quirter walked into the office and Al Poli tried unsuccessfully to overhear the conversation going on in the whipping snow, Corly Adams was happily obliging Sheriff Bingham by talking to Henry Dawson.

“Said he wanted to see you first thing, Henry. Think I know where he is right this minute.”

“Well, I ain’t got nothing against talking cattle with Joe.”

“Why don’t you sit still? Maybe I can fetch him over here right now.”

Corly turned and waved at Al Poli. “Be with you in a second!” He trotted toward the office as Billy Quirter was coming out, map in hand. “See you found it! Be right with you!”

Corly Adams fairly bounced with enthusiasm. It pleased him to be middle man for this piece of business. It pleased him that he knew just about where Sheriff Joe Bingham would be this time on a Friday morning. He telephoned the Sell-Rite Drug Company. Sure enough Sheriff Bingham was over there having a cup of coffee at the fountain counter.

Outside Billy Quirter returned to Al Poli. “What the hell’s going on?”

Al Poli shook his head. “Yakked with the guy in the truck there. Then busted back inside and picked up the telephone.”

A small muscle flickered beside Billy Quirter’s mouth. They had been traveling for two days and three nights at high speed. They had a little over two days left. At that time Tony, Billy’s half-brother, would be breathing cyanide pellets. Tony wanted the girl dead before that happened. Tony wanted that girl absolutely dead, so he could breathe those pellets knowing that the witness who’d got him into that death cell was getting the same as he was getting.

Billy took a breath. Tony had told him to knock the girl off, and he’d always done what Tony had told him to do. Moreover, Tony had promised to filter out word to Billy, using a prearranged code, about where to pick up that fifty thousand dollars he’d put away. But only if Billy chopped the girl in time. Billy Quirter rubbed a gloved hand across his mouth. He swung around as Corly Adams bounced back into the driving snow.

“Sorry to hold you up!” Corly said. “Where you fellows heading anyhow?”

“East.” Billy kept his right hand inside his coat.

“Bad roads out that direction. You ought to have chains on. You got chains?”

“Yeah.”

“I can put ’em on for you. No time at all.”

Billy Quirter looked down at the map. On one side was a detailed map of Graintown and its neighboring towns. On the other was a map of the state. Arrow Junction, Billy Quirter saw, was a crossroads ten miles east on Route 7.

“How about Route 7?”

Corly Adams shook his head. “Gravel road. Maybe haven’t put a snow plow through there since she started to storm. Haven’t got a report yet this morning. I wouldn’t try that without chains, mister.”

Billy Quirter looked at Al Poli. Al Poli was no help. Billy finally said to Corly Adams, “Put the chains on.”

“Do it real fast!” Corly Adams said, and shouted to Henry Dawson in the half-ton truck, “Hold right on, Henry. He wants to see you. He’ll be right over!”

Bill Quirter moved back in the less windy area in front of the office. Al Poli moved with him. Al Poli’s teeth were chattering again. His large fish eyes kept blinking. “Maybe we shouldn’t wait for those chains, Billy.”

“Now you say it. You talk when you’re supposed to shut up, and you shut up when you’re supposed to talk. Why don’t you shut up now?”

Al Poli ducked his head against the snow and cold. Billy Quirter looked nervous and that frightened Al Poli. “Listen, Billy. Croaking that old buzzard in Sacramento—”

Billy turned black, furious eyes on Al Poli. “I keep telling you! You don’t want to get paid for this trip?” Billy rubbed his gloved hand across his mouth again, looking back at Corly Adams. Murder was not new to Billy. He’d been committing it for his half-brother, Tony Fearon, all the years since Tony had got into the rackets. Almost nobody was wise; he was just Tony’s brother hanging around without even an active finger in the operation.

But now Tony was locked up in condemned row in that California prison. Billy didn’t have Tony’s personal reassurance that he was doing a good job so far. All he had was the help of a spaghetti-spined Al Poli.

All of that increased his nervousness. All of that kept him worrying about having killed the girl’s father in Sacramento. Well, the hell with it. They’d made it look like a simple robbery and beating, hadn’t they? And the ransack of the croaker’s apartment had produced the lead they were looking for.

The girl may have disappeared after that day in court when Tony was convicted and had yelled his threat about getting her. But Billy and Al Poli had gotten one good lead: a note written in the old bugger’s hand:
Annie—2346 Adams Street
,
Omaha.

Billy and Al Poli had followed it out. She’d changed her last name from Rodick to Brown. She’d worked for a little while as a secretary in Omaha. Blonde, now, not brunette. Then she’d married some farmer from out in the sticks. They didn’t know the farmer’s name. But they knew the name of the small burg was Arrow Junction.

Now they were ten miles away. Close. But they couldn’t afford any mistakes now.

“I’d put her up on the rack,” Corly Adams yelled to them, “only I got Emil Bronsen’s Nash up there, see?”

“What the hell do we care about that?” Al Poli said to Billy.

“Shut up, Al.”

Corly Adams rattled a tire chain. He grinned and yelled at Henry Dawson in the truck, “How’s the missus, Henry?”

“I mean this boy yaks and yaks,” Al Poli said.

Billy Quirter shifted his feet nervously. Quite suddenly he didn’t like any of this. Corly Adams seemed purposely clumsy in mounting the chains. There had been that telephone call. Billy didn’t know what Corly Adams might have smelled out. The car switch in Vegas should have been good. You could always count on Nick Pappas for a clean car. But somehow Billy kept feeling something was going wrong.

It all happened quickly.

The light blue Ford sedan rolled up behind the half-ton truck. Corly Adams straightened and turned. A tall, lean man with a broad-brimmed hat stepped out of the Ford. Billy Quirter identified only one word that Corly Adams uttered:

“Sheriff…
”

Billy saw the metal star pinned on the lapel of Joe Bingham’s mackinaw. Billy’s right hand came from under his coat. The gun in his hand leaped twice, spouting tongues of flame into the blowing snow.

Corly Adams watched Sheriff Joe Bingham sit down suddenly on the snow-covered concrete. Corly remained frozen for a fraction of a second, then spun around. He took one look at backing, gun-carrying Billy Quirter. Then he threw himself under Henry Dawson’s half-ton truck in a single swift motion.

Al Poli was swearing. It was a steady aimless swearing, performed as he tried to make his brain catch up with what had just happened. Henry Dawson, shock-eyed, ducked under the window of his truck.

But Billy Quirter judged the situation in an instant. Their car was still up on the jack. They couldn’t use that. What to do next?

While Billy was wondering that, the right hand of Sheriff Joe Bingham had moved laboriously under his mackinaw to close around his own gun. The gun came out and up. Al Poli fired at the same moment the gun in Sheriff Bingham’s hand kicked.

Sheriff Bingham, in that last minute of his life, did not know which of the two men had shot him first or if it mattered. He simply fired at the larger, easier target.

Al Poli slid down to the snow like a thick blanket collapsing. It would have taken a better county coroner than Grain County owned to have determined who died first: Sheriff Joe Bingham or Al Poli.

Billy Quirter paused only once before he fled from sight. He looked back and saw the silhouette of Corly Adams lying under that truck.

With accurate speed, Billy Quirter aimed his gun at the man he was certain was responsible for all that had just happened.

When Billy Quirter disappeared, Corly Adams lay flat beneath that truck, a bullet gone cleanly from temple to temple. It was Corly’s chance at last to find out how much there was to do in heaven and how many he could do it for. The only man alive remaining in that snow-swept station that morning was farmer Henry Dawson. Farmer Dawson had not been touched by hand or bullet. But it later took five of Graintown’s strongest men to pry him out of that truck…

It was some time later that Tony Fearon, much larger than Billy and pasty white with prison pallor, heard the news of the shooting in Graintown.

But he’d already got the news about that old man being killed in Sacramento. So far, neither the cops nor the newspapers had tied up the old man’s death with the threat Tony Fearon had made the day he’d been convicted; although one San Francisco daily had noted the fact that the old man, beaten to death and robbed, was the father of the key witness who’d accidentally been on the scene the night Tony had gunned fellow-gambler Mickey Haveland in a burst of temper. Nobody but that girl, that witness, had taken Tony’s threat seriously. That was too bad. They should have been smarter, just like Tony should have been smarter in the first place and let Billy take care of Mickey Haveland.